Environmental Psychologist

Imagine you are sitting in your office poring over journal articles about factors that influence the kinds of decisions people make when choosing where to live. You are an environmental psychologist and you have just been hired by the City to research how environmental considerations make some neighbourhoods more attractive to homebuyers than others.

The City is starting to put together a long-range plan to combat urban sprawl: one of its solutions is to increase density in inner-city communities. These communities are being redeveloped, and city planners want to make certain they will attract buyers while still following the higher-density strategy. They have asked you to evaluate different approaches to community development that will satisfy buyers’ concerns with respect to their urban environment and turn these inner-city communities into sought-after real estate.

As an environmental psychologist, you specialize in studying how the physical environment affects people and how people affect their environment. For this project, you want to know how the physical environment of these inner-city neighbourhoods can be made more attractive to homebuyers. You start by conducting a thorough review of all published literature relating to the subject. Issues of urban sprawl and inner-city revitalization are common in major cities, so a number of studies have already been conducted.

You also want to gather opinions from city residents, so you design your own study whereby several groups of homebuyers are surveyed as to the factors influencing their choice toward or away from inner-city neighbourhoods. For example, higher-density housing in inner-city neighbourhoods often calls for condo complexes, townhouses, and detached homes with smaller lots, all of which give homeowners very little lawn or outdoor space. You want to know if buyers are more interested in living in a community where lawns are smaller if the neighbourhood has lots of parks and open green space.

Buyers might also be more interested in inner-city communities when they consider the environmental cost of commuting from the suburbs and their contribution of greenhouse gases, as well as the better access to public transit that these communities afford. You will study a number of environmental considerations and how they affect decisions when it comes to choosing what community to live in. The results of your study will be incorporated into the City’s plans for its inner-city neighbourhoods.